


Pomegranate Seeds

by Lirriel



Series: Within the Over-Soul [1]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 16:49:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3817774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirriel/pseuds/Lirriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"May your venture into the Oversoul prove fruitful.” </p><p>Jumping into the world of a massively-successful MMO was supposed to be fun. Kim quickly learns that some things aren't always as they seem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pomegranate Seeds

**Author's Note:**

> What a weird AU this is. This was actually written to give me a short break from another, longer piece I’m working on involving Yogs, but I really enjoyed writing it. So much so that I have another piece already in the works. ~~this was meant to be a break ;;~~

Head down, Kim Richards of PlayStation Access fame rooted eagerly through the outer casing of the biggest hit since sliced bread. Titled Oversoul, it was a critically-acclaimed massively-multiplayer online _experience_. It couldn't be called a game, people said; it was an entire shift in a person’s lifestyle. With the gradual introduction of VR equipment into people’s daily life, many experts had prophesied that sooner or later the world would latch onto a virtual reality that was quickly becoming as concrete as the physical. Literal mind games were the norm now, but none had ever captured attention the way Oversoul had.

 _Everyone_ played it, and that’s why PlayStation Access's indecisiveness to feature the game had so rankled her. While competitors quickly jumped onto the bandwagon, Kim’s company had muddled through an entire half of the year showing off games that were no match for the monster.

But, finally, she had broken her employers’ wills down. Finally, and because it had been her numerous proposals and powerpoints and emails and IMs, she was the one in charge of unveiling it, and _she_ got first crack at it.

To say her hands were shaking as she carefully cracked the inner case was an understatement. Inside the slim packaging that featured a stylized wisp on a cool gray background was a single sheet of paper. It couldn't even be called a sheet, more of a slip, the type you’d get a fortune cookie’s lucky numbers on. Its only other real similarity to a fortune, though, was that on one side it had words and on the other side it had numbers.

“Switch to voice command and read aloud. May your venture into the Oversoul prove fruitful.” Kim read the words out slowly, tasting them. Alone in her office, she had purposely cleared her entire day. No lunch meetings, no two-thirty breaks in the coffee room, no last-minute editing that kept her chained to her desk with the sun sinking down and the entire building deserted. Nothing but her and Oversoul.

“Gotta document this properly,” she murmured to herself. In all the excitement, she had forgotten the camera trained on her, eagerly watching her unwrap the case. In post-editing, the game code would be blurred and music would be overlayed. Kim smiled large for the camera, giving it a triumphant thumbs up and held the pose for a few seconds. Then she stood up, walked over to the device and switched it off.

From now on there’d be nothing but ingame footage and her narration, added in after filming as she played it back. Not that she had any problems with live commentary, but that was how the bosses expected things to be done. And in truth, while typically she argued against this sort of canned, boring remnant of yesteryear where people simply reported the news instead of living it, she was actually glad in this case. Now she’d be able to explore completely uninterrupted, not constantly being reminded that she was supposed to keep up a steady commentary that flowed naturally without being overbearing.

Setting up her VR equipment was a bit trickier. The goggles were easy enough to slip on, lightweight and comfortable but packing some serious hardware. The pads, however, always gave her problems, no matter what game she was playing. She attached the muscle transmitters to her knees, elbows, and finally the last uncomfortable one, underneath her left ear. While sticky and rather large, they were actually helpful, reading the slightest muscle twitches and transforming them into the movement of whatever video game character she was controlling. Combined with the goggles that served as her eyes and wrapped around her ears, it was easier than ever to become wrapped up in a reality that existed solely in her head. Hence, the new moniker for video games: mind games. Not the most clever adaptation, but these things rarely were when they started out.

Obediently, Kim switched the command input for the equipment set to vocal commands before slipping the goggles in place and tugging at the ear straps until they cupped her comfortably. With no actual game being played, the goggles were semi-opaque and she read the game code out carefully. It took two tries, only because on the first one she botched the three and eight, but on the second go the goggles whirled in her ears and the start-up music played. Kim grinned at her success and turned the opacity level of her lens to max.

Just her and Oversoul, no distractions.

Like all MMOs, Oversoul had her go through the tiring process of creating an account and verifying the account and setting an iris scan password, which was another fad of the times but left her right eye twitching. Leave this part out, was her quick decision as she quickly logged in.

Like all brand-new things, Oversoul ran wonderfully. No loading screens, music tuned to perfection, just a bit of atmosphere for her ears, and the space surrounding her wasn't the wide-open galaxy most MMOs went with when creating a character and deciding on a server and all that hogwash. Instead it was a jungle, brimming with spectacular animals that reminded her of natural species, but not in a way that she could point one out and say, “That’s just a jaguar with a spike on its head!” the way it was with so many games.

When it came time to make her character, she just knew, somehow, that she would only be allowed one (to start with, until she reached level twenty). The name came to her quickly, and she said Nanosounds, because it could be shortened to nano, and she was short. Ha!

Picking her class was harder. It was possible, of course, to switch classes. But like most real-life examples, swapping would take time and money and a person’s dedication. “Think of it as being born into a family of ranchers,” one developer had said in an interview. “You grow up learning how to milk the cows or shear the sheep, stuff like that. But if you want to be a doctor, you have to learn how to do that. It isn't natural like ranching.”

What he said had made sense and the ability to change classes (with dedication and hard work) had interested many people; flexibility was the spice of life. So, with some care, she picked the warlock class, taking a liking to one of its numerous iterations, the flux oracle.

She instinctively knew she hadn't picked a popular choice. Average statistics pegged the oracle as dead last in class numbers, so regardless of whatever server she chose, the chance of her finding similar people was very low. That didn't matter much, she thought; she was forever picking the unpopular choice in games, and she’d bull her way through the way she always did.

There was another question of confirmation in her head and she wryly thought, _Feels like I’m talking to the big man himself. Or herself. Itself._ Then she accepted, and colors popped in front of her eyes.

It didn't hurt, exactly. The entire experience of creating her character and becoming Nanosounds the flux oracle—none of it hurt. It was just a sudden shift in her body. Her stomach dropped, and she felt slightly nauseous, dizzy the way she got when she stood up too suddenly after a nap. It cleared up quickly, didn't hang over her the way such a feeling normally did, but when she looked down at herself, she was different. Her normally tan-yellow skin was tinged purple in spots now: dark and smudged like blackberries had been crushed into her skin and left their mark. Her fingers were completely coated and tendrils of purple curled up her arms. The clothes she wore were different too, no longer jeans and a t-shirt with an old, faded Marvel logo. Now she had an adventurer’s clothes: a sash wrapped around her waist, turning a loose red tunic embroidered in gold into a dress; it looked vaguely oriental in nature, a cheongsam with a western bent. A pair of breeches, pale cream, same color as the sash, hugged her legs, but when she shifted her weight, she felt them give easily with no protest. They ended just at her ankles, hovering above a pair of red shoes with golden bottoms.

Her hair and face were mostly unchanged as were her body proportions. The game waited for her, patiently, as she took her new self through a series of tests. As expected, her reflexes were faster and she was quicker and stronger than she normally was in real-life. Like in most games, she’d be facing down large and fantastical beasts, so the game was giving her a helping hand, modifying and augmenting as needed. She didn't have access to any of her skills yet; those wouldn't be available until she actually joined the online world. In the end, the only thing she disliked about her new body was the way her right eye occasionally filmed over. She would have called it a graphical glitch, but the game was too well made for that.  It had to be something to do with the class she had picked, and she wondered if maybe that was why so few people chose or stuck to the oracle class.

At last she grew bored of pushing her new body to its limits in the beautiful but lifeless world that served as the creation terminal. The game responded immediately, and her surroundings changed. Now she was in space, floating over a world. Even as she looked down at it, it lazily shimmered and changed. Each iteration was the same size, but the land masses on it changed; some were volcanic and harsh and then a shimmer replaced them with jungles. Another shimmer and she stared at polar caps, trying not to shiver in her lightweight clothing. At last she saw one she liked, and the game hummed happily in her ears, a trill of birdsong serving as her congratulatory tune.

This scene change was less seamless than the one preceding it. The world around her dissolved, slowly, and she made a mental note that this was probably a loading screen. Even as the cosmos drifted away in a million particles, a new world formed around her.

The world of Oversoul, she quickly found, was perfect. Placed on the Asgard server and spawning in the Yggdrasil region of some other Nordic name that changed to strange symbols when she focused on it, Kim found herself in a forest of towering darkwood trees. Greatwood, the Oversoul glossary informed her when she touched one of the giant trunks, one of the largest trees located in Asgard, capable of regenerating if the roots are not removed. The grass beneath her had a blue-green sheen to it, healthy and hearty and, as she discovered when she touched a blade, soft to the touch. _Thick enough you could use it as a bed_ , she thought.

The sky above her gleamed in seafoam green and two blue moons hung overhead, even though her internal clock told her it was daytime. Even as she stood, gazing like a lovestruck loon, a breeze brushed past her cheek, and she felt the sweet rush of fresh air, smelled the delicate scent of clover and realized she belonged here. _Nanosounds_ belonged here.

Some internal prompt made her stop examining her surroundings and reach inside one of the pockets of her breeches. With a bit of tugging she quickly had a scroll in her hand, crumpled and written on uneven paper that had likely been recycled the old-fashioned way.

“Nanosounds,” the note read, its script scratchy like a chicken’s tracks, “We have heard word of your performance in the arts and are in need of a hero such as yourself in the lands of Valhalla. Speak to one Knight Peculiar upon reaching the town of Bilrost.”

Even though she knew a tutorial quest when she saw one, Kim—no, _Nanosounds_ —was eager to head toward the town. It lay just beyond the greatwood forest, situated at the beginning of a grassy meadow that stretched in all directions and encircled the copse, with great stones jutting from the ground. It was an obvious beginner’s zone, but Nanosounds found she didn't mind.

She set off through the copse, head held high.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Three days later, Kim was ready to admit that maybe Oversoul was the best game of all time, and that she was its slave. With a bunch of new projects lumped on her at work and her deadline fast approaching, she had taken to playing it at home. Now she stumbled into work each day a few minutes before the workday actually began, typically downing three cups of coffee before she began to walk like a human instead of shambling like a zombie. With no internal clock, it was difficult to judge the passage of time in Oversoul, and oftentimes she found herself too caught up in the action to keep track of how often the moons rose and fell in the virtual sky. As a result, she often found herself going to bed at one and two in the morning, being dragged out of her unreal reality by the weariness that plagued her body.

Despite her fatigue, she was proud of herself and of Nanosounds. The flux oracle was an unwieldy one, to be sure. The class relied on a combo system: specifically, it relied on continuous battle. The more she fought and the longer she fought, the stronger her spells became but as soon as she was away from the action and no longer worried about fighting for her life, her power weakened. Because of the time requirement, she had taken to practicing with polearms and ranged weapons, before finally settling on a guandao, an eastern polearm with a heavy blade on one end and a weighted cap on the other. Its long reach and devastating ability to slice through tough materials had proved invaluable.

Nanosounds was quickly coming to the end of her first act; Knight Peculier, her old and now trusted friend, had tasked her with slaying the lindworm, a serpentine dragon without wings and only two limbs. It was rumored to have a venomous bite, but Nanosounds had taken only a single look at the dank cave it slept in and logged off; she didn't want to admit that she was scared of it, but there had been some close calls in her fight, most notable with one of the jotunn, a nasty type of frost giant native to the Asgard server.

Now, with a belly filled with food, and the sounds of Friday nightlife creeping through her walls from outside, she gladly affixed the VR equipment. Nanosounds logged on in the exact same place she had logged out, still staring down into the cavern, her ears straining to catch any hiss of movement.

“Planning on taking down that lindworm?”

The careless voice, coming from only a few steps behind her, made the oracle _eep!_ and jump in place, spinning around. A man stood behind her, tall and husky, though not in an unattractive way. Bright blue eyes danced beneath blonde bangs he pushed back carelessly, the rest of his hair tied back in a short ponytail that draped along his shoulder. His outfit was strange, the loose pale outer robe she expected from a spellcaster, but with the boots and breeches and tucked-in shirt of one of the melee classes. Not to mention the goggles wrapped around his neck, making him look like a Casual Friday scientist. What class was he?

“Technomancer,” he supplied, and she looked up at him, startled. “No one ever knows,” he added cheerfully, “Apparently I’m supposed to wear a lot of steampunk crap, but that looked hideous.”

“What’s that?” She hadn't seen it in the class listing.

The man shrugged and gave her an easy grin, his face flitting between handsome grown man and chuffed schoolboy.  “Engineer plus warlock. Was an absolute bitch getting the levels high enough, but it paid off.”

That explained absolutely nothing, especially since she hadn't heard of it in all the research she’d done for Oversoul. It sounded like a subclass, the way flux oracle was, but from the way he spoke, it obviously wasn't. “A hybrid?” she ventured.

“Hybrid class, yep.” He nodded at her. “I’m ‘bout as rare as you are, I take it.”

“Wha—” she began, but he cut her off, still smiling.

“Flux oracle, right?  Guilds have been in a tizzy about you, ya know.”

“Why?” Nanosounds looked down at her arms, uncomfortable. She had noticed the way some people looked at her, but she thought that had been normal. She was a new player in an established game. It’d been in beta testing for a whole year before it went live. She was almost two years late to the party, and most of the people she’d encountered had been old pros.

“Let’s see,” the man said. “Mmm, what were they saying?” He stood there, scratching at his head, then shrugged. “Don’t remember! Oh well. Name’s Lalna, by the way,” and he held his hand out for her to shake.

Feeling discombobulated, Nanosounds shook his hand back, “My name is Nanosounds.”

The smirk he gave her wasn’t unfriendly, but she had to squash the urge to kick him. “That’s right, I’m short, haha,” she muttered mutinously.

Lalna shrugged, obviously uncaring. “You picked that name, not me.” Then his friendly grin fell off and he looked behind her, his expression flat. “So, you going for the lindworm? Alone?”

The way he said it made her feel stupid, and she shot back defensively, “What, what’s wrong with that?”

The technomancer gave her a small smile and shook his head. “Should probably let me team up with you, if you’re really so eager to try him.”  He held up his hand before she could speak. “Not gonna steal your glory or anything, but bosses are made for groups. Two heads are better than one.”

“Fine,” the word popped out of Nano’s mouth, sullen. She hadn’t thought the lindworm counted as a boss, but Lalna’s words made sense. She hadn't yet experienced dying, and she wasn't eager to find out how the reincarnation system worked in such a lifelike game as Oversoul.

“Awesome,” Lalna said, walking over to her and giving her a thump on the back. As she stood there, struggling not to topple over and cursing all tall people, he peered into the gloom. Then he looked over his shoulder at her and asked, “You all right with me leading the way? I can see in the dark thanks to these goggles,” and he indicated the pair hanging loose around his neck.

“Fine,” Nanosounds said. It wasn't like she had much choice; what idiot would take the lead while blind?

“Cool. Might wanna hold on though, so you don’t get lost.”

He held his hand out to her, and this time she balked. “No way,” she said.

He frowned at her. “Don’t be like that. It’s just so we don’t get separated.” Then he held up his hands, “Look, I have gloves on. No skin-on-skin.” His hands were gloved, the fabric as white as the coat he wore.

“Fiiiine,” she grumbled. She held his hand, gripping him tightly, and followed him as he stepped into the gloom.

The cave slanted downward, not greatly, but enough that she felt it as they walked through the darkness. The walls were tight at the entrance, but as they traveled deeper down, the cavern began to widen, and the claustrophobic feeling Nano had been battling finally settled. With her sight useless, Nanosounds relied on the senses of touch and sound. Echoing gently in the cave she could hear the soft drip of water, and from the cool breeze that occasionally brushed past her, she guessed there was probably a standing pool of water deeper in.

At last she heard Lalna take a deep breath of air, and she pushed closer to him, finding comfort in his presence. “Here we are,” he murmured back to her, and led her around another shadowy corner.

In the center of a massive cavern lit up with softly-glowing blue mushrooms that clustered along the walls, the lindworm waited. Beneath its two feet lay thousands of smoothed stones, giving the appearance of a nest, though probably the most uncomfortable one Nanosounds had ever seen.

The creature was large in size, its girth thick enough that it would have trouble fitting through a door frame, with a head that reminded Nanosounds of a piranha, its flat, egg eyes cold as it gazed back at them. Its golden hide twitched and a low growl escaped its mouth, lips curling back to reveal shark teeth.

“Oh, look,” Lalna said, giggly, “It was waiting for us!”

He shoved Nanosounds back out of the cavern. She grunted as her back hit hard stone, her eyes struggling open and refocusing fast enough to watch as Lalna was standing in front of her and then flying off to one side of the cave, the lindworm’s plumed tail swatting him aside like a fly.

The lindworm pushed itself up on its legs now, its frilled neck crest scraping the ceiling. It roared again, and Nanosounds scrambled back to her legs and dove into the chamber, lashing out at the beast’s muzzle with a purple crescent of energy. The creature hissed as the etherium scraped across his hide, spilling sickly green blood that smoked upon touching the ground.

“Don’t touch the blood!” Lalna’s shout was followed by a powerful surge of energy that lanced past Nanosounds, diving toward the lindworm’s legs and slicing through the left one. Gristle flew and bone was exposed, the snicker-snap of an electrician’s lightning sabre booming in the large room before it embedded itself in the opposite wall and hummed no more.

 _So he picked that_ , Nanosounds found herself thinking.

The beast growled, its shriek transforming into a howl as its massive bulk made its ruined leg collapse completely, throwing the animal to its side. Nanosounds threw a wave of etherium at it this time, the purple force rising like a storm before rushing over the creature and leaving lacerations scored deep in its side.

Again the creature screamed in outrage and pain, but this time it swept its tail toward her, tensed for a crushing blow instead of a sidesweep. Nanosounds swung her weapon loose of its bindings, tearing through the cloth that typically kept it wrapped in her haste. She swung in a pendulum motion before finally sliding the blade, edge-up, to meet the creature’s thick tail. The force of her swing cut through hide, fat, muscle, stuck in bone, and she abandoned the weapon as the animal jerked its tail up and then slammed it back down.

Nanosounds scrambled backwards, and the tail hit where she had previously stood.

A rough hand grasped her shoulder and wrenched her up, earning a yelp of pain as Nano scrambled to stand on her feet. Lalna stood beside her, panting from a mix of adrenaline and pain, his other hand clutching tightly at his rib cage. Even though his skin was ashen, he still managed to crack a smile as he croaked out, “Good job.”

Then he was away from her side faster than she would have expected from his condition, lurching forward to catch hold of the creature’s tail, his hands gripping the flesh tightly. He hunched over, and blue lightning arced up his clothes and raced along the monster’s hide. The lindworm screamed again, a defeated, anguished cry, its body spasming as the electricity took hold.

Lalna stepped back as the lindworm finally collapsed completely, still twitching on the ground.

Nanosounds hobbled closer to look at it, but Lalna held his arm out, breathing roughly and blocking her way. “Not yet. Can’t touch it until the energy dissipates. Trust me.” When she started to move toward him, he lurched away from her, spinning around to face her fully with his hands held up in an attempt to ward her away. “No touching me either; I’m all juiced up after that.” He giggled nervously, and she finally retreated to one of the cave walls, pouting.

At some point the goggles had slipped back down around his neck, and one of the lenses had cracked.

Nanosounds sat there and watched him as he went to work, pulling out a short energy blade that pulsed orange. He went around the monster, slitting its belly and then its stomach and making her gag as he reached in and began to feel around, his tongue sticking out in concentration. At last he let out an, “Aha!” and pulled out a small metal sphere, technologically advanced in a way most of Asgard wasn't. “I would have been right pissed if he’d managed to break this,” Lalna told her, giving the body a small boot of disdain before walking back around it to rejoin her.

“Not zappy anymore,” he said, then held out his other hand and opened it to reveal a white triangular object.

“The lindworm’s tooth,” Nanosounds said, unable to hide the glee in her voice. With it, she had just completed her first real test. She reached out to take it—only to have Lalna toss it away.”W-what?” Nano sputtered in outrage as the technomage calmly examined his metal ball, prodding and poking at it with his hand.

“You shouldn't have fought the lindworm,” he said carelessly, his voice light. “You’re only level, what? Twenty, maybe twenty-three?”

“I’m twenty-two but what the hell does that have to do with anything? Why did you throw my tooth?”

“The lindworm,” Lalna continued, “is an end-game boss mob. You fight him when you’re around ninety. High eighties if you've got the right sort of group for it. Typically takes three level nineties, anyways. Anything lower than eighty and you’re dog meat.”

That made absolutely no sense. “That can’t be right!” Nano argued back, staring at Lalna’s face. The man must be a loon. “We just fought that thing and we won. I was doing damage to it!”

“Yeah, ‘cuz I stuck Robit,” and here Lalna gestured at the metal sphere, “in his mouth a while ago. Soon as you picked your class, in fact.” He looked up at Nanosounds then, his eyes sharp. “Robit’s a special engineering bot. All the engineer subclasses get one. Before I went electrician, I did a bit of traps. He’s meant to debuff the big bads. Damage over time, nausea, fatigue, confusion—you've played games before, you know what I mean.” And here he flapped his hand.

“W-why was I fighting the lindworm, then?” Nanosounds hated the childlike bewilderment in her voice, but nothing made sense. She had been following her quest line, doing perfectly fine. Why throw this impassible obstacle at a player like her? Maybe there had been a bug, maybe that was why no one played flux oracle—maybe they all knew.

“There’s something wrong with the flux oracle’s questing system.” Lalna’s voice was low, conspiratorial. “They start out the same as any of the other classes, but at some point the flux oracle gets thrown into fighting something way out of their league. They die and they delete their character. Never log back in again, either.” Lalna was whispering now, his eyes pinpricks of blue in the shadows. “I noticed it one day when I was looking through the class statistics. People are constantly joining this game, but there are always only a few flux oracles; sometimes, there aren't any. I did a bit of digging, and I've found this much out. But I don’t know _why_. As soon as you joined, I started following you. All the other flux oracles that are still playing—and there aren't a lot—don’t want to be found.”

Nanosounds didn't understand what he was saying, didn't know why he was pressing closer, his voice drenched in intensity.

“Please,” he said softly, “let me stay by your side. This game has secrets. It doesn't want flux oracles reaching max level, and I want to know _why_. I need your help for that.”

“I—” Nanosounds tried to speak, failed, swallowed and tried again with similar results. The sharpness left Lalna’s face and he pulled away with a sigh that ended in a sharp gasp.

“Fuck,” he hissed. “Even with a hybrid class that guy was a bitch to take down. I should really work on my cleric.” He laughed roughly.

“I need to think,” Nanosounds finally managed.

Lalna nodded at her, gave the robot a few more prods and dropped it. Right before it hit the ground, the sphere clicked to life, gears whirring inside of it and a steady clink-clink-clink emanating from it as it hovered a foot off the ground, bobbing closer to Lalna until it was heeling by his leg. “Mind if I send a friend invite?” he asked, giving the robot a gentle nudge with his foot. It whirred and bobbed away a few feet before bouncing back toward him, sloppy in the air as if it were riding invisible waves.

“Go ahead,” Nanosounds was already edging away from the cave, her hand reaching for the portal link that would take her back to Bilrost. She paused when she saw the icon in the top right corner of her vision and silently sent confirmation. A beep resounded in her ears, and she felt Lalna. She knew she’d be able to tell whenever he was online and know where he was because of the friend-share they now had. But that didn't matter now, all she wanted was to get out of Oversoul and think.

“I’m going now,” she told him. “Have stuff to think about.” She winced at her clumsy repetition, but Lalna didn't seem to mind. He just gave her a nod and a smile and she reached out and caught hold of the link to Bilrost.

There was a lurch and she was back in the city. She stood there for a few moments shell-shocked, and then remembered that the lindworm tooth, proof of her conquest, was back in the cave with Lalna.

“Piss,” she moaned and threw the VR goggles off her head with a disgusted groan. Nanosounds logged out automatically at this connection disruption and Kim set about pulling the pads off her elbows, knees and from behind her left ear.

Finished, she threw herself onto her bed and laid there, well aware of the fact that her video on it was due in another few days’ time. And that’s when it hit her. Screw the review video. If Lalna was right and something strange was going on with flux oracles, then she could easily hit it big if she reached max level as one. The first, the only—and, of course, along the way she’d help Lalna discover what was wrong with the game. With her journalism skills and his expertise, they’d crack the case wide open.

The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that something was seriously wrong with Oversoul. She pushed herself off the bed and grabbed the game code paper that she had used. She flipped it over so she could read the words.

“Switch to voice command and read aloud. May your venture into the Oversoul prove fruitful.” Kim read the sentences out slowly, tasting them. “May your venture prove fruitful.” She set the paper down and reached for the VR goggles, intent on sending Lalna a message. “Oh, it _has_.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Classes mentioned:
> 
>  **Engineer** : A class specializing in technical and mechanical skills; typically spawns on servers located in the Industrial era or beyond  
> 
> 
>   * **Trapsmaker** : Specialization involving the creation of traps and mechanical agents designed to harm or otherwise throw opponents into disarray. Common debuffers include gas clouds, neurotoxins, electrical fields, etc.  
> 
>   * **Electrician** : Specialization based around the idea of harnessing electricity via mechanical means and utilizing it in battle. Common apparatus include shock sticks, electric sabres, charged chains, etc. 
> 

> 
> **Warlock** : A class specializing in magical skills and theorems based around combat; typically spawns on servers based in myth  
> 
> 
>   * **Flux Oracle** : Specialization utilizing time passage to unleash devastating results; _Ed. Note:_ wtf does that have to do w/ flux or oracle?? devs really dropped the ball on this one  
> 
>   * **???** : Secondary class of Lalna’s Technomage hybrid, not used in Lindworm battle 
> 

> 
> **Technomage** : A hybrid class based around utilizing magical and technological forces together. Currently known technomages in Oversoul: Lalna on Asgard Server and Zoeya on Mytilini Server. Reports indicate technomages are a jack-of-all-trade class, trading power for utility.


End file.
